The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought by Alexander F. Chamberlain (read full novel txt) 📖

open the window, on which it again became light in the room, and he was enabled to get up.”

Girls, too, among the Eskimo, could become angakoks or shamans. Rink tells of one who visited the underworld, where she received presents, but these, while she was carrying them home, “were wafted out of her hands, and flew back to their first owners.”

Of the Pawnee Indians, Mr. Grinnell informs us that the legend of their wanderings tells of a boy in whose possession was the sacred “medicine-bundle” of the tribe, and who was regarded as the oracle-interpreter (480 (1893). 125).

 

Witches.

As Dr. Mackay has remarked, in all the woeful annals of the witch-persecutions, there is nothing so astounding and revolting as the burning and putting to death of mere children for practising the arts of the devil. Against innocents of both sexes counting no more than ten or twelve years, there appear on the records the simple but significant words convicta et combusta—convicted and burned. Here the degradation of intellect and morals reaches its lowest level; it was Satan and not Jesus who bade the children come unto him; their portion was the kingdom of hell, not that of heaven. In Würzburg, between 1627 and 1629, no fewer than 157 persons suffered death for witchcraft (guilty and innocent), and among these were included “the prettiest girl in the town”; two mere boys; a wandering boy of twelve; a maiden of nine and her sister, younger in years; two boys of twelve; a girl of fifteen; a boy of ten and a boy of twelve; three boys of from ten to fifteen years of age. At Lille, in 1639, a whole school of girls—fifty in number—barely escaped burning as witches (496 a. II. 266-287). Everywhere the maddened, deluded people made sacrifice of their dearest and holiest, tainted, they thought, with the touch of the evil one (496 a. II. 285). It is a sad comment upon civilization that the last execution for witchcraft in England, which took place in 1716, was that of “Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, a child nine years of age, who were hung at Huntingdon, for ‘selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm, by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap’” (191. 344).

In the London Times for Dec. 8, 1845, appeared the following extract from the Courier, of Inverness, Scotland: “Our Wick contemporary gives the following recent instance of gross ignorance and credulity: ‘Not far from Louisburg there lives a girl who, until a few days ago, was suspected of being a witch. In order to cure her of the witchcraft, a neighbour actually put her into a creed half-filled with wood and shavings, and hung her above a fire, setting the shavings in a blaze. Fortunately for the child and himself, she was not injured, and it is said that the gift of sorcery has been taken away from her. At all events, the intelligent neighbours aver that she is not half so witch-like in appearance since she was singed” (408. III. 14).

Concerning the sect of the Nagualists or “Magicians” of Mexico and Central America Dr. Brinton tells us much in his interesting little book (413). These sorcerers recruited their ranks from both sexes, and “those who are selected to become the masters of these arts are taught from, early childhood how to draw and paint these characters and are obliged to learn by heart the formulas, and the names of the ancient Nagualists, and whatever else is included in these written documents” (413. 17).

We learn that “in the sacraments of Nagualism, woman was the primate and hierophant,” the admission of the female sex to the most exalted positions and the most esoteric degrees being a remarkable feature of this great secret society (413. 33). Indeed, Aztec tradition, like that of Honduras, speaks of an ancient sorceress, mother of the occult sciences, and some of the legends of the Nagualists trace much of their art to a mighty enchantress of old (413. 34).

In 1713, the Tzendals of Chiapas rose in insurrection under the American Joan of Arc, an Indian girl about twenty years of age, whose Spanish name was Maria Candelaria. She was evidently a leader of the Nagualists, and after the failure of the attempt at revolution disappeared in the forest and was no more heard of (413. 35). Dr. Brinton calls attention to the fact that Mr. E. G. Squier reports having heard, during his travels in Central America, of a “sukia woman, as she was called by the coast Indians, one who lived alone amid the ruins of an old Maya temple, a sorceress of twenty years, loved and feared, holding death and life in her hands” (413. 36). There are many other instances of a like nature showing the important position assigned to girls and young women in the esoteric rites, secret societies, magic, sorcery, and witchcraft of primitive peoples.

 

“Boy-Bishop.”

A curious custom attached itself to the day of St. Nicholas, of Patara in Lycia (died 343 A.D.), the patron saint of boys, after whom the American boys’ magazine St. Nicholas is aptly named. Brewer, in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, has the following paragraph concerning the “Boy-Bishop,” as he is termed: “The custom of choosing a boy from the cathedral choir, etc., on St. Nicholas day (6th December), as a mock bishop is very ancient. The boy possessed episcopal honour for three weeks, and the rest of the choir were his prebends. If he died during the time of his prelacy, he was buried in pontificalibus. Probably the reference is to Jesus Christ sitting in the Temple among the doctors while he was a boy. The custom was abolished in the reign of Henry Eighth” (p. 110). Brand gives many details of the election and conduct of the “Boy-Bishops,” and the custom seems to have been in vogue in almost every parish and collegiate church (408. I. 415-431). Bishop Hall thus expresses himself on the subject: “What merry work it was here in the days of our holy fathers (and I know not whether, in some places it may not be so still), that upon St. Nicholas, St. Katherine, St. Clement, and Holy Innocents’ Day, children were wont to be arrayed in chimers, rochets, surplices, to counterfeit bishops and priests, and to be led with songs and dances from house to house, blessing the people, who stood grinning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction. Yea, that boys in that holy sport were wont to sing masses, and to climb into the pulpit to preach (no doubt learnedly and edifyingly) to the simple auditory. And this was so really done, that in the cathedral church of Salisbury (unless it be lately defaced) there is a perfect monument of one of these Boy-Bishops (who died in the time of his young pontificality), accoutred in his episcopal robes, still to be seen. A fashion that lasted until the later times of King Henry the Eighth, who, in 1541, by his solemn Proclamation, printed by Thomas Bertlet, the king’s printer, cum privilegio, straitly forbad the practice.”

When King Edward First was on his way to Scotland, in 1299, we are told, “he permitted one of these Boy-Bishops to say vespers before him in his Chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and made a considerable present to the said bishop, and certain other boys that came and sang with him on the occasion, on the 7th of December, the day after St. Nicholas’s Day” (408. I. 422).

The records of the churches contain many particulars of the election, duties, and regalia of these boy-bishops, whence it would appear that expense and ceremony were not spared on these occasions.

Another boy-bishop was paid “thirteen shillings and sixpence for singing before King Edward the Third, in his chamber, on the day of the Holy Innocents” (408. I. 428).

The Boy-Bishop of Salisbury, whose service set to music is printed in the Processionale et usum insignis et preclare Ecclesie Sarum, 1566, is actually said “to have had the power of disposing of such prebends there as happened to fall vacant during the days of his episcopacy” (408. I. 424). With the return of Catholicism under Mary, as Brand remarks, the Boy-Bishop was revived, for we find an edict of the Bishop of London, issued Nov. 13, 1554, to all the clergy of his diocese, to the effect that “they should have a Boy-Bishop in procession,” and Warton notes that “one of the child-bishop’s songs, as it was sung before the Queen’s Majesty, in her privy chamber; at her manor of St. James in the Field’s on St. Nicholas’s Day, and Innocents’ Day, 1555, by the child-bishop of St. Paul’s, with his company, was printed that year in London, containing a fulsome panegyric on the queen’s devotions, comparing her to Judith, Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary” (408. I. 429-430). The places at which the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop have been particularly noted are: Canterbury, Eton, St. Paul’s, London, Colchester, Winchester, Salisbury, Westminster, Lambeth, York, Beverly, Rotherham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, etc. The Boy-Bishop was known also in Spain and in France; in the latter country he was called Pape-Colas. In Germany, at the Council of Salzburg, in 1274, on account of the scandals they gave rise to, the ludi noxii quos vulgaris eloquentia Episcopatus Puerorum appellat, were placed under the ban (408. I. 426).

It would appear from the mention of “children strangely decked and apparelled to counterfeit priests, bishops, and women,” that on these occasions “divine service was not only performed by boys, but by little girls,” and “there is an injunction given to the Benedictine Nunnery of Godstowe in Oxfordshire, by Archbishop Peckham, in the year 1278, that on Innocents’ Day the public prayers should not any more be said in the church of that monastery per parvulas, i.e. little girls” (408. I. 428).

Though with the Protestantism of Elizabeth the Boy-Bishop and his revels were put down by the authorities, they continued to survive, in some places at least, the end of her reign. Puttenham, in his Art of Poesie (1589), observes: “On St. Nicholas’s night, commonly, the scholars of the country make them a bishop, who, like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the people laugh at his foolish counterfeit speeches” (408. 427). Brand recognizes in the iter ad montem of the scholars at Eton the remnants of the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop and his associates (408. 432); and indeed a passage which he cites from the Status Scholæ Etonensis (1560) shows that “in the Papal times the Eton scholars (to avoid interfering, as it should seem, with the boy-bishop of the college there on St. Nicholas’s Day) elected their boy-bishop on St. Hugh’s Day, in the month of November.” In the statutes (1518) of St. Paul’s School, we meet with the following: “All these children shall every Childermas Day come to Pauli’s Church, and hear the Child-bishop sermon; and after he be at the high mass, and each of them offer a 1d. to the Child-bishop, and with them the masters and surveyors of the school.” Brand quotes Strype, the author of the Ecclesiastical Memorials, as observing: “I shall only remark, that there might be this at least said in favour of this old custom, that it gave a spirit to the children; and the hopes that they might one time or other attain to the real mitre made them mind their books.”

In his poem, The Boy and the Angel, Robert Browning tells how Theocrite, the boy-craftsman, sweetly praised God amid his weary toil. On Easter Day he wished he might praise God as Pope, and the angel Gabriel took the boy’s place in the